At first glance, one would think coffee farmers in Panama would be well-off financially. The sought after bean is one of the world’s largest exports, and consumers are willing to pay top dollar for a cup of java.

But despite the fact that most people have a cup of coffee on their desks, farmers in Wacuco Kuna, a small village in the Darién region of Panama, are struggling to capitalize on their valuable commodity. Not only are they competing with local competition, they’re being low-balled by coffee buyers that are not paying a fair price for their coffee.

It’s a situation that a group of Oakland University undergraduates are aiming to eliminate with the inception of Café de Kuna, a program that allows them use what they’ve learned in business school to help the farmers in Wacuco Kuna.

The program was part of Global Business Brigades, which gives students the chance to learn about international business, trade, and the unique culture and history of several countries.

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“There are several issues that people in Panama are dealing with as they try to get a fair price for their coffee,” said Rebecca Braga, a 22-year-old Shelby Township resident and Café de Kuna member, working toward her master’s degree in accounting.

“The main concerns they had in the village was how to sell their beans at a higher price and how to increase their production and yield,” she said. “Coffee exports, if the farmers can sell at a profitable cost, can help pay for the things they need in their community.”

A big idea

The creation of Café de Kuna took place in February 2013 as part of the University’s Ideas to Business Lab, or i2b. The goal of the lab was to help increase the community’s coffee output with the intent to export by identifying, and implementing, as sustainable business plan.

Mark Simon, the faculty advisor for Café de Kuna, said the project began as a way to teach complex processes to students, and to pass knowledge to farmers they can use to build their business.

“In the beginning, the students couldn’t even communicate with the village, and by the end, they were contacting with them once a week,” he said. “For the students, going to Panama was a way to teach classroom principles by applying them in a practical way. It had a huge impact on a village.”

Once in Panama, student volunteers met with villagers to determine the nature of their concerns, and identify what obstacles stood in the way of a more robust coffee operation. They introduced the importance of a business plan with identified goals and projections, as well as the importance of effective negotiations with buyers.

Quickly, the students learned that some of the easy solutions, such as having other people work land owned by the farmers, could not take place because in Panama, that could give those people rights to claim the land, said Braga.

“It was another culture, and the simple solutions we would work - we found out once we got there that it couldn’t be done,” she said. “We had to re-think some of our strategies.”

How to help

Another goal of Café de Kuna is a crowd-funding campaign. The online fundraiser will help the students pay for the program on an ongoing basis and build a communal greenhouse in the village.

The goal of the campaign, which kicked off March 1, is to raise $30,000 in 30 days.

If the students raise $15,000, they’ll be able to pay for an expert to provide workshops to help the farmers. But if they raise $30,000, they’ll be able to pay for the greenhouse.

So far, the students have raised $7,200.

The Café de Kuna volunteers learned many lessons about Panama, and had the chance to provide other resources for the people in the village, such as books for the 50 children that lived there.

Lifelines and lessons

It’s a tasty treat for people in rich countries like the United States, but in Panama, coffee is a chief source of income that Panamanians depend on to pay for basic community services, such as education.

OU business student and Café de Kuna volunteer Daniel Ellis, 23, said the farmers needed to learn some basic concepts to help them reach their goals as a community.

“The people in the village were very intelligent, they just lacked the tools to reach their goals,” he said. “They didn’t know how to create leverage to give them an advantage with the buyers - they didn’t know that they could control demand.

Ellis added that one of the biggest lessons he learned was that despite cultural differences, people typically want the same things.

“What they want is a better community, with improved health care and education,” he said.

Simon said that the biggest lesson of the program is that cultural barriers can be crossed to make life better for others. “What they’re learning is that with a little effort, they can change the world.”

The crowd-funding campaign ends Sunday, March 30. To help the students of Café de Kuna empower the Wacuco Kuna community,